An explication of Sam Harris's philosophy within his book - "The Moral Landscape"
Part 5
If you haven't already, check out part 4 first:
Also consider checking out this introductory section:
Narrated Version:
ONTOLOGY OF OUGHTS
So the is/ought gap is basically the claim that - one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is". The way I see it, the validity of the is/ought gap is nested in one's ontology of "oughts".
The word 'philosophy' can represent either the entire field of study, or a collection of philosophical ideals held by one person or group. Just like the word 'philosophy', 'ontology' can represent either the entire study of what exists, or a collection of objects that a person or group claims exist. So, if one claims that 'oughts' exist, then their ontology includes 'oughts'. Conversely, if one claims that 'oughts' don't exist, then their ontology doesn't include 'oughts'.
SCOPE OF OUGHTS
An 'ought' can be though of as existing within at least two different scopes - the narrow scope of logical deduction and the broader scope of ontology. If one's ontology includes "oughts" (or, if one thinks that it is possible for 'oughts' to exist) then the validity of the is/ought gap is limited to the scope of logical deduction (as Hume frames it) and this gap does not carry any ontological significance - as in, there is no reason to conclude that we can never ontologically get "ought-ness" from "is-ness". Or in other words, if "oughts" ontologically exist then they must be ontologically derived from "is-ness", and therefore the only scope in which "oughts" cannot be derived from "is-ness" is within logical deduction.
For example: Premise 1) All cows suffer when butchered. Conclusion) We ought not butcher cows.
This is not a valid deduction because nothing in the premise includes moral language like "ought". The premise just tells us a fact about reality ("is-ness"). The only way to get an ought conclusion is by adding a meta-ought premise:
Meta-Ought Premise) We ought not make animals suffer.
Premise 1) All cows suffer when butchered. Conclusion) We ought not butcher cows.
Then we can add a fact to this moral principle to produce a moral conclusion. Absent the moral principle, we cannot logically derive an "ought" from an "is". Within this narrow scope of argumentation, the is/ought gap remains valid. But what happens when we leave this scope?
OUGHTS ARE DUTIES/DICTATES
The ontology of "oughts" will fundamentally depend on one's definition of an "ought". The idea of an "ought" is usually philosophically connected to a duty. A duty usually implies "something you have to do". Having to do something is connected to the idea of a dictate - something must dictate a duty in order for one to have a duty. For example, theologically, God is the one who dictates what our duties are, and then we are obligated to perform them. But this framework (of defining "oughts" as duties/dictates) is still too vague because dictates can be either supernatural (God) or natural. Dictates can be either internal (sourced within self) or external (sourced within others). Dictates can be either justified or unjustified. Dictates can be either authoritative or non-authoritative. Dictates can be either psychological or biological.
NARROW OUGHT DEFINITION
If one limits the definition of "oughts" to "justifiably authoritative psychological dictates to others", then one sets up an infinite regress that makes the existence of a fundamental "ought" seem absurd. For example, "I ought to X"; we can ask, "says who?" The "says who" question is looking for the justification behind an "ought". It is essentially an appeal to authority. This "says who" can be asked over and over until the true source of authority is identified. A theist would land on God as the source of authority and be done. An atheist would be unable to ground the ultimate authority behind their "oughts" and hence land on moral anti-realism. By simultaneously defining an "ought" as a "justifiably authoritative psychological dictate to others", and concluding that there is no such thing as an foundational moral justification (no God), then one has removed "oughts" from their ontology - by defining them out of existence. It makes sense that the is-ought gap cannot be bridged if one doesn't even believe that "oughts" exist in the first place.
LOOSE OUGHT DEFINITION
What if one expands the definition of "oughts" to include "any dictates"? This removes the need for finding a source of authority to justify said "ought". This could even be recursive and apply as a psychological dictate to oneself (internal ought). I think anyone could agree that these types of oughts exist. Every time a person offers a moral opinion, they have created an "ought" for society. Every time a person sets a goal, they have created an "ought" for themselves. The ontology of the existence of these psychological oughts is as an idea within the minds of conscious agents - an imperative founded upon a psychic value system. What can we say about the relationship between these "oughts" and the is-ought gap? These oughts come from values, values come from the combination of intuitions and beliefs, intuitions and beliefs come from nature and nurture (DNA and culture), nature and nurture come from the selective pressures of the environment, and the environment is just a brute fact - the fundamental "is". So based on this genealogy, we can say that "ought-ness" does in fact come from "is-ness", as the psychological opinions people have come from their the is-ness of their existence. Because of the is-ness of the way the environment has allowed them to exist, they now have an "ought" that emerges from that "is-ness". For the lion, the "is-ness" of their existence gives them the innate ought to hunt and eat meat. For the human, the "is-ness" of our existence gives us the innate ought to cooperate. Our innate oughts are inextricably tied to our species' niche strategy.
PRIMORDIAL OUGHT
If we dig into this genealogy a bit deeper, we will find that the most primordial ought is the phrase "I ought to exist." For example - Why should humans obey the law? Because human psychology has evolved an ought for cooperation; Why did we evolve an ought for cooperation? Because cooperation is successful for our species; Why should we be successful? Because evolution aims for success as only the successful are able to maintain their existence and the unsuccessful cease to exist; Why should we exist? There is no 'why' here - it is just a brute fact that that which can exist will exist. Only creatures that have been embedded with an "I ought to exist" imperative will take the actions necessary to maintain their existence. If eating is necessary for maintaining one's existence, then evolution will program them with an "I ought to eat" imperative. If you ask them, "why ought you eat?" the response might be, "it harms my wellbeing to not eat?" You might follow up with, "why ought you not harm your wellbeing?" and they will be backed up against a wall - there is no psychological reason other than a brute fact - that wellbeing is the psychological language of biological imperatives. So the reason for not harming your wellbeing must go deeper than the psychological layer - down to the evolutionary layer. That which doesn't eat ceases to exist. So in order to maintain existence, wellbeing imperatives for eating must be implemented. So the fundamental ought behind "why ought one eat" is that "one ought to exist".
INFINITE REGRESS DEAD-END
So based on the flexible definition of an "ought", we can see that they definitely exist due to "is-ness", but they don't hold moral value due to "is-ness". Our biology may be built upon the axiom "our DNA ought to exist", but that doesn't mean that fundamental ought is morally correct. If one questions this axiom, there is no answer to turn to. We don't have a meta-ought behind this fundamental "ought to exist". It just "is" the case that that which exists must have an "ought to exist" embedded within its design.
OUGHTS ARE INHERENT TO GAMES
Once we exist, we are by default injected into the game of life. The game of life has all the axioms and rules of the game built into its structure. By virtue of existing, we find ourselves simultaneously existing within a game - which means the fundamental "oughts" of the game are imposed upon us. I would propose that under this framework we have no meta-ethical requirement for justifying the "we ought to exist" axiom of a naturalistic morality. The fact that we exist within the game is all the justification we need. It "is" the case that we exist within a game of life, and it "is" the case that the game of life requires the axiom of "we ought to exist". When we point to justification for our fundamental meta-ought, the only thing we can say is that this meta-ought comes from the "is-ness" of reality - the "is-ness" of the game in which we inhabit. So at the deepest levels of analysis, we cannot go back further that the brute fact of existence - our "oughts" come from what "is" the case.
DEDUCTIVELY DERIVE
As I have defined it, the "is/ought gap" is the idea that one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is". This is highly dependent upon the word "derive". If by derive we mean "deductively derive" then I believe that the is/ought gap holds valid at the deepest level of analysis, because there is no deeper premise that can give us our moral conclusion. A subset of "deductive derivations" might be a "moral derivation". A moral derivation would be using a moral premise to obtain a moral conclusion. So, even though we ontologically obtain a fundamental "ought" from the "is-ness" of nature, there is no moral justification or rational justification for these fundamental "oughts". In order to morally/rationally derive our fundamental ought, we must find a meta-ought that is deeper than it. Unfortunately, we know of nothing deeper than the brute facts of existence. We cannot go deeper. Even if we could go deeper, you could always look for a meta-meta-ought to justify the newly found meta-ought. This approach to justifying morality is impossible because it sets up a vicious infinite regress. But notice, when we are looking for meta-oughts to morally derive or rationally derive our fundamental ought, we find that this effort is looking for a justification! By attempting this method, we have smuggled in the narrow definition of an ought. We originally found that the narrow definition of oughts are impossible since they define oughts out of existence - by requiring a "justifiably authoritative psychological dictate". By looking for a justification for our fundamental "ought", we have smuggled in the need for a justification into the definition of our "ought".
ONTOLOGICALLY DERIVE
But if by "derive" we mean "ontologically derive", this means that merely obtaining the existence of oughts will satisfy our definition of derive. In this frame, we must admit that the is/ought gap fails, in that we truly do obtain "oughts" from "is-ness". By virtue of the fact that "oughts" exist, they prove themselves as ontologically derivable from "is-ness." We don't need to justify them, because under the loose definition of "oughts", they don't require a justification. We can just accept that the brute fact of existence produces some fundamental "oughts" and those "oughts" bubble up in an emergent fashion into the complexity of morality.
IS/OUGHT GAP IS NOT AN ONTOLOGICAL GAP
So what this means is that the is/ought gap is only a morally/rationally viable gap and not an ontologically viable gap. Hence the gap is only valid within the scope of a logical deduction (as Hume frames it). It would be an error to expand the implications of the is/ought gap beyond logical deductions to a metaphysical principle over all of existence.
FOUNDATIONALISM
My approach here for resolving the infinite regress on the origin of "oughts" would be classified as foundationalism. Foundationalism is the most popular philosophic strategy for resolving infinite regresses. If we can point to the starting point of the logical chain then we don't have to worry about the dubious idea that it might go on forever. In our case, our starting point is the brute fact of existence ("is") paired with the brute existence principle - namely, "that which can exist will exist", paired with the brute existence optimization principle - "only the creatures that make their own existence a goal will be able to exist in the face of entropy", resulting in the evolution of the foundational ought - "I ought to exist" - a principle upon which all lifeforms necessarily based their goal-oriented behavior (self-directed dictates, i.e. "oughts").
BRUTE FACT OF EXISTENCE
If we try to trace back the origin of all existence, we are stuck with landing on the big bang as the ultimate cause. The big bang is the best explanation we have so far. We don't know why the big bang occurred. We don't know what existed before the big bang. But we are pretty sure that something like a big bang occurred. This is the brute fact of our ontology - everything that exists within our ontology is sourced to the big bang. There is no known "ought" for why the big bang occurred. There is no known "why" or "how". Based on the evidence, we have to just accept this as a brute fact - the first known "is". And all things spawned from this initial "is".
BRUTE EXISTENCE PRINCIPLE
If we reflect on the nature of reality, everything that exists has sufficient principles behind its existence to allow it to exist. Galaxies exist because the intensity of the gravitational force produced by the black hole at their core is sufficient to keep many stars within its rotation. Stars exist because their gravity is intense enough to attract matter from gas clouds and systematically pressure the gas into releasing energy via nuclear fission. Planets exist because excess material around a star has enough momentum to escape becoming star fuel, but instead builds its own identity with its own gravity that isn't intense enough to ignite its materials, but rather keeps them in their natural form, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous. All of these objects exist based on the brute existence principle - "that which can exist will exist".
BRUTE EXISTENCE OPTIMIZATION
Similarly, life exists because it has the principles needed for its existence. The problem with life is that it is ordered in a way that is more complex, so it suffers more from the chaos of entropy. In order for life to remain ordered, it must have systems of combating entropy in place. This means that life has to consume energy in order to obtain excess energy for the purposes of combatting entropy. The need to consume energy causes lifeforms to be pitted against each other in a zero-sum war for the consumption of energy. This competition for energy is what requires biological life to optimize the principles behind its existence. Therefore, the lifeforms that organize their principles in such a way as to promote their own existence will outcompete lifeforms that prioritize their existence less successfully. This is how the evolution begins to take on a telos of "I ought to exist". A telos is an unconscious goal. The bacteria that reproduce unconsciously understand "my genes ought to reproduce so that my genetic identity can continue to exist". So competition forces the biological goal of existence onto a goalless landscape of possibility.
FOUNDATIONAL OUGHT
As humanity evolves, our unconscious biological telos slowly becomes more conscious as we grow in our ability to self-reflect on our desires. Within the newly evolved capability of higher-level psychology, humanity begins to study our own value systems. We value food because we value taste and dislike the pangs of hunger. But the deeper reason why we value food is because "we ought to exist". Our pleasure and pain surrounding food is our DNA's way of communicating "we ought to exist". All our biological drives are manifestations of our unconscious telos of existence.
Sometimes people view themselves as masters of their bodies, but this is largely not the case. We usually identify with our prefrontal cortex - the most uniquely human part of our brain, but the prefrontal cortex exists to service the limbic system. Or in other words, the smart part of our brain is built to service the needs of the limbic system which regulates biological drives that promote survival. This means that purpose of psychology is to satisfy biology. So if our biology has an unconscious goal of "I ought to exist", then our psychology necessarily also has this goal at its root.
When we are dealing with morality, it is largely a project of analyzing our psychological intuitions regarding right and wrong behavior. But if the fundamental principle at the root of our psychology is "I ought to exist" then we have a foundational starting place for meta-ethics.
MORALITY
Humanity embarked on a social path of evolution. This means that we became dependent on a strategy of cooperation. We are not very successful as creatures on our own in the wild. But when we band together we are the most formidable creature on the planet. The only way to cooperate successfully is for everyone to operate on mutually beneficial game theoretic strategies. If everyone was a Machiavellian psychopathic murderer, we would all kill each other before we could form a band to hunt some prey. In order to cooperate, we would need to treat each other like family. Only by "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" can cooperation begin. Since each member of the group is dependent on the whole, individual wellbeing is tied to the wellbeing of the group. This allows for a collective morality to emerge. Instead of everyone having their own individual moral code, the group operates according to one moral code. Everyone is equal and everyone is invested in the same strategy. Because the "I" is dependent on the "we", "our" interests become "my" interests. Because each individual has a biological telos to exist, and because each individual's ability to exist is predicated upon cohesive group cooperation, collective morality is able to emerge on top of this foundation. The fundamental "ought" - "I ought to exist" - evolves into "we ought to exist" and many complex social structures are generated as each group tries to invent the best way to exist.
GROUPS
These group strategies manifests in many forms across many cultures. They manifest as tribes, as religions, as tyrannies, as anarchies, as democracies, and as republics. Each group is trying to find the best set of rules, the best set of values, and the best set of principles. As societies get more complex, different types of cooperation paradigms emerge. Religious ethics for theistic morality. Philosophy for secular morality. Law for common morality. Business ethics for intracompany morality. Politics for government morality. The ultimate test for whether or not these moralities are 'correct' is whether or not they succeed in helping the genes continue to exist. Evolution doesn't care about anything but that.
HUMAN SENTIMENT
Most people find the idea that morality is limited to "survival of the fittest" repulsive. They find the idea that "the moral lesson we should take away from nature is that we should abuse others in order to succeed" detestable, and rightly so. But humanity needs to remember - the only reason you have these moral sentiments, the only reason you find these ideas detestable - is because THESE IDEAS DO NOT HELP YOUR GENES CONTINUE TO EXIST.
Psychopathy does not help DNA continue to exist. Abusing others does not help your DNA continue to exist. Abusive strategies trigger retribution and revenge - the more people you offend, the quicker your genes get locked away in a jail cell, never to reproduce again - evolutionary 'GAME OVER'.
The lesson we learn from human evolution is that nice strategies are successful! Cooperative strategies are successful! Pro-social strategies are successful! After all, mothers and fathers spend around 18 years of effort raising their kids in a selfless manner - what other animal does that? All of the good things that we love about classical morality seem 'selfless' and first glance, but upon deeper inspection they are absolutely selfish from the perspective of the genes. The genes want parents that nurture their kids for the development of the next generation - so the genes can continue to exist. The genes want a hero to fight to protect the group - so that the group can continue to exist. From the genes point of view, they often care less about the individual and more about the group. Because our moral sentiments are geared to care about groups, we obtain all of the beautiful moral principles that we cherish.
SUICIDE
Suicide is the biggest counter-argument to the "I ought to exist" thesis. I am not an expert on the etiology or causality of suicide, so take my perspective with a grain of salt. So the question is, if we are truly programmed to feel like we ought to exist, then why is suicide such a problem? The most obvious answer is that some people might have genetic mutations or errors in their brains that causes them to feel an abnormally high amount of negative emotion that tortures them until they commit suicide. This is an extremely unfortunate side-effect of the randomness of evolution. Just think about that for a second - this world is structured in such a way that people are randomly tortured by their own brains, by no fault of their own, merely because their DNA made some mistakes. What a horrific thing to exist as a function of nature! These people deserve our utmost sympathy, love, care and support.
But in addition to the maladaptive case for suicide, I wonder if there might also be a pseudo-adaptive case for suicide as well. The question is - can suicide ever be a useful behavior for the success of a group? This is a very provocative question, but if we truly care about solving these problems, I think we need to take evolutionary questions seriously. The group ideally wants each member to be a valuable contributor to the group's success. When individuals become burdens on the group, it makes the group less able to continue its existence. If a group was antisocial, they might just kill any member of the group that was a burden. But because humans are prosocial, we find it immoral to harm each other. So instead of humans evolving to kill the members that are a burden on the group, it might be that humans evolve to kill themselves if they feel that they have become a burden on the group. There seems to be evidence of this in Canadian Inuit tribes, where the elderly will commit suicide if they feel that there is not enough food for both the elderly and the children [Emile Durkheim and Altruistic Suicide].
MEANING CRISIS
This could be why the "meaning crisis" is such a huge problem - the idea that many modern individuals are suffering from a loss of meaning and purpose in their lives. This could also be why 1st world nations have more suicide than 3rd world nations. Or why the rich commit more suicide than the poor. When we don't know what our purpose is, we lose track of how we are contributing to the group. If we don't think we are making a meaningful impact, then we lose the will to live. In richer nations, the group's needs are mostly met, and it becomes unclear what more needs to be done for the group. In a poorer nation, problems are much more visceral and available to be solved. Each problem might be frustrating, but it provides a sense of meaning and purpose to daily living. So the take away lesson is that when problems are harder to find, we need to be more creative in finding the problems that we want to solve.
OVERCOMING SUICIDAL IDEATION
The reason why I think the "adaptive" case for suicide is actually a "pseudo-adaptive" case is because burdens on the group are a defunct form of evolutionary burden. Our modern societies are rich enough to the point where almost no one is truly such a burden that the group is in danger of ceasing to exist because of them. This perspective comes from a scarcity mentality - the belief that society is poor and lacks resources, and every resource spent on my existence is a huge cost to the group. This mentality can be corrected by readjusting your perspective to adopt an abundance mentality - the idea that society is rich enough for everyone to have their basic needs met. Additionally, people's perspective of their own worthlessness, or inability to contribute might largely be illusory. In modern societies, there are many diverse ways to contribute. There is no requirement for any traditional style of contribution. I believe one can alleviate some of this pain by mentally reframing what an acceptable contribution looks like.
Remember:
Affirm "I ought to exist"
Change attitude about society - Abundance mentality
Change attitude about self - Unique contribution
EVOLUTIONARY TRADEOFFS
Humans are unique in that we have evolved a more robust prefrontal cortex. My understanding is that the main feature of the prefrontal cortex is to inhibit the rest of the brain. So, the prefrontal cortex gives us the illusion of free will, because we can sometimes inhibit or shut down our animalistic instincts. In this sense, there may be an evolutionary benefit to boosting our ability to override our instincts, but the evolutionary cost is that we may become powerful enough to override our survival instinct as well. This means that at the birds-eye view level of analysis, the "we ought to exist" is still in effect on the evolutionary process, but that there is a tradeoff at play, and it just so happens that the benefit of allowing rational overrides is worth the cost in suicides. So these rational suicides would be negative side-effects of adaptive traits.
The propensity for negative emotion (neuroticism) can be a driver behind rational suicides. If evolution was a simple process, we would just assume that neurotic genes should be filtered out by natural selection, and everyone would be full of positive emotion. But evolution is not a simple process - there may be evolutionary benefits to neuroticism. It may be an adaptive trait as opposed to a maladaptive one. A neurotic rabbit might successfully avoid all the wolfs with its hyperactive anxiety, but it will fail to kill itself due to lacking a robust prefrontal cortex. A human on the other hand can kill itself if the neuroticism gets jacked up too high. So, evolution might have to ride the line between the right amount of anxiety to get the creature to be successful, but not so much that they commit suicide. So, we can see that the will to exist is still in effect, trying to optimize for existence despite suicidal byproducts. Because natural selection filters on existence, it seems to me like the emergent will to exist is an unavoidable telos on the process.
FUTURE OF EVOLUTION
Given that humans have evolved the rational capacities to resist their instincts, I believe that human evolution will tilt towards 1) increased positive emotion, 2) increased love for people/kids. Our ability to commit suicide will force evolution's hand and require our genes to give us better emotions. Our ability to choose whether or not we reproduce will force evolution to no longer increase reproduction with the lust emotion, but rather by manipulating our love emotion. By increasing our fondness for children, evolution can get us to voluntarily reproduce when we otherwise could opt out. When all the women who dislike motherhood opt out, only those women who have the genetic propensities to love motherhood will carry their genes to the next generation. This pattern shows how wellbeing always supervenes on game theory, because the people whose wellbeing is connected to a bad evolutionary strategy will disappear from the gene pool, and only those people whose wellbeing is connected to a good evolutionary strategy will persist.
Possible Reasons for Suicide:
Maladaptive - bad mutation causes excess suffering (depression)
Individually Adaptive - a mutation gives both a net-benefit and a cost in suicidality (tradeoffs)
Collectively Adaptive - suicide helps the group (heroic)
Pseudo-adaptive - propensity to falsely believe that suicide helps the group (meaning crisis)
The Gap Between Applied Ethics and Meta-Ethics
When I mention that the meta-ethical foundation of morality is “I ought to exist”, the most common rebuttal is “what about suicide?” I believe that this response fundamentally confuses meta-ethics with applied ethics. When people commit suicide, they are acting out their view of “what ought to be done” – their applied ethics. But there is a gap between a moral conclusion (applied ethics) and a moral foundation (meta-ethics). What we end up doing can often drastically differ from our moral principles. For example, we may have a meta-ethical principle of humanism, or “valuing human life”, yet at the same time we make the moral conclusion that the destruction of human life is morally permissible (abortion). How is it that our applied ethics can differ from our meta-ethics? This is because there are layers of logical deduction between the principle and the conclusion. The conclusion may seem superficially contradictory to the principle, but when you map out the flow of logic, the contradiction disappears. Similarly, when someone commits suicide, superficially this looks like it contradicts the meta-ethical principle of “I ought to exist”, but this is only because one hasn’t processed the logical gap between the meta-ethics and the applied ethics.
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DEBATE OVER HUME'S GUILLOTINE
As I see it, the main issues that drive the wedge between Sam and Sean is that they have two different definitions of "ought" and they operate from two different fields of inquiry. Sam Harris operates from the definition of "ought" as "any value that contains an imperative within it". He exposes his definition by equating "burning your hand on the stove" with an "ought. Similarly, he also operates from the angle of ontology - he is looking for the existence of "oughts" and he finds them within the "is-ness" of consciousness. From an ontological perspective, he is able to derive the existence of "oughts" from that which "is".
Sean Carroll conversely defines "ought" as "justifiably authoritative imperatives". He exposes his definition when he says "says who?" in his efforts to find a moral authority behind moral claims. Sean operates from the field of logic as he makes explicit in his efforts to show that it is impossible to logically derive an "ought" from an "is" premise.
As I see it, both are correct - given their definition and angle of analysis. But I think Sam Harris's perspective is more useful since humans don't actually operate like logical input-output machines and reducing morality to logical deduction misses the point that morality doesn't actually need a transcendent authority (God?) to justify their axioms in order for morality to function in the world.
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A large portion of Sam Harris's argument in "The Moral Landscape" is regarding bridging the is-ought gap.
Sam's Core Argument
In my opinion, Sam's three arguments presented here are kind of weak. I am not alone in this assessment, unfortunately. I believe the strongest argument of the three is the first - that we can derive "ought" from "is" because wellbeing is that which ought to be, and its oughtness comes from its true nature of being. Although, normal interpretations of the idea of wellbeing do not meet Sam's criteria as "the only thing we can reasonably value".
Normally, wellbeing is viewed as a pleasant and healthy state of being, one that is entirely optional depending on your goals. A soldier isn't motivated by personal wellbeing when they suffer in the trenches of war, but rather patriotism. A police officer isn't motivated by personal wellbeing when they rush into a gun fight, but rather the duty to protect the people.
In prior blog articles, I have fleshed out a more detailed definition of wellbeing that I call meta-wellbeing which DOES meet Sam's criteria as "the only thing we can reasonably value". Meta-wellbeing is the entire map of brain states that motivate decision making, where the net drive of all factors is that which promotes meta-wellbeing. If patriotism makes your brain happy, then pursuing patriotism is pursuing meta-wellbeing. If fulfilling a duty makes your brain happy, then fulfilling a duty is pursuing meta-wellbeing. The reason why meta-wellbeing is the only thing we can value is built into the definition of meta-wellbeing - it is what we value!
Cosmic Moral Objectivity vs Skeptical Moral Relativism
Sam notes the dichotomy between the religious moral realist who finds their morality in the cosmos, and the moral anti-realist who concludes that a morality that derives from evolution has no objective basis. As I have been arguing (in prior blog articles), I find evolutionary game theory to be the "north star" that objectively guides the evolution of morality. And I believe meta-wellbeing is the voice of game theory.
Is/Ought Distinction a Relic of Abrahamic Religion?
Abrahamic religion introduced moral duties in the Ten Commandments - a list of "thou shalts". Each "thou shalt" is an "ought" built into the structure of the religion that shaped Western culture. It makes sense that when Westerners are raised to think that the source of authority for morality comes from the God of the Cosmos, that when they lose their faith in God, they will simultaneously lose their faith that there is any basis for these "oughts". But this is because our culture has programmed us to think that the only "oughts" that can exist are "cosmic oughts". Reframing the source of morality within evolution allows us to accept evolutionary utility as a valid basis for "evolutionary oughts".
Values are Necessarily Connected to Conscious Experience
In arguing that values are based in consciousness, Sam basically sets up a chain of ontological logic in that "oughts" come from values which come from consciousness and manifest through meta-wellbeing. I tend to agree that it is impossible to find values outside of consciousness. Many people may value inanimate objects like rocks, rivers, forests, musical instruments, or pieces of art, but the value doesn't come from those inanimate objects - the value comes from the psychic phenomena that occur within consciousness. Because these things in nature boost our meta-wellbeing, we value them, and consequently develop a framework of "oughts" surrounding them.
Epistemic Skepticism
Fascinatingly enough, Sam develops "Harris's Guillotine" in this section of the book. Just as Hume's guillotine proports that one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is", Harris's guillotine proports that one cannot derive an "is" from an "is". Just as moral conclusions require moral oughts within the premises, Sam claims that scientific conclusions require scientific oughts within the premises, and logical conclusions require logical oughts within the premises. While often these premises may go unnoticed as unspoken axioms, this is true of both morality, science, math, and logic.
Examples of 'Oughts' needed to produce 'Is' conclusions
SCIENCE
Premise 1: We can make a theory about reality.
Premise 2: We can use the theory to make predictions.
Premise 3: We can make observations.
Premise 4: We can test to see if our observations match the predictions.
Premise 5: We can understand that our predictions are true.
Conclusion: We can understand that our theory is true and can generate additional correct predictions.
Unspoken Axioms:
"You ought to trust that the future will resemble the past."
"You ought to trust the reliability of your objective observations and measurements"
"You ought to trust that the correlation between observations and predictions means that the theory is true"
"You ought to trust in the theory with the most explanatory power."
"You ought to trust in the theory with the most parsimony, given equivalent explanatory power among competing theories."
LOGIC
Premise 1: All dogs have 4 legs.
Premise 2: All things with 4 legs can run.
Conclusion: All dogs can run.
Premise 1: All humans are either male or female.
Premise 2: Suzie is a human.
Premise 3: Suzie is not a male.
Conclusion: Suzie is a female.
Unspoken Axioms:
"You ought to agree to the definitions and operations of logical operators like ALL, AND, OR, NOT, IF, THEN, THEREFORE."
"You ought to acknowledge that concepts have specific and constrained identities, they are what they are, and they are not what they are not [The Law of Identity]."
"You ought to not contradict yourself, or that your conclusions should not contradict your premises [Law of Non-Contradiction]."
"You ought to acknowledge that premises must be true or false, and that there is no middle ground between these two attributes. [The Law of Excluded Middle]"
"You ought to acknowledge that the descriptions and constraints within each premise carry over and impact each other [The Law of Transitive Properties].
MATH
Unspoken Axioms:
"You ought to agree to the definitions and operations of mathematical operators like +, -, *, /, =, etc."
"Thou shalt trust that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other [Axiom of Extensionality / Transitive Axiom]. "
"Thou shalt trust that a variable cannot be equal to two different things simultaneously [Law of Non-Contradiction]."
"Thou shalt trust that an equivalent mathematical manipulation on both sides of the equals sign maintains the original mathematical truth value [Symmetric Axiom]."
CONCLUSION
Hume's guillotine has long held sway over the minds of intellectuals, bringing us out of modernity into post-modernity where moral relativism reigns. What does bridging the is-ought gap means for morality? I think that it helps us realize that we don't need to tether our morality to some divine authority in order for us to think objectively about it. We don't need to enter a relativistic hellscape where there is no up or down and anything is permissible. We can acknowledge the true roots of our morality - evolution in social groups. We can acknowledge the fundamental principles driving the evolution of our morality - the idea that "we ought to exist". Then we can use these principles to measure the quality of the moral theories we produce. Having an ability to objectively refine our morality will give us more knowledge about how to make the world a better place.
REFERENCES:
Emile Durkheim and Altruistic Suicide
Stack, Steven. (2004). Emile Durkheim and Altruistic Suicide. Archives of suicide research : official journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research. 8. 9-22. 10.1080/13811110490243741. Accessed on 10/7/2022 at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7738910_Emile_Durkheim_and_Altruistic_Suicide.